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NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2001

Husavik Journal

Gad, Alligators! Is Iceland Balmy, or By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Colorado Gators, a fish farm 7,500 HUSAVIK, Iceland, Oct. 1 — Here on Iceland’s northern shore, the arc­ tic grouse are already wearing their white winter coats as the snows Plain Barmy? feet up in the Rockies in Mosca, Colo., that uses alligators to eat its waste and now holds alligator-wres­ fringing the peaks prepare to creep fighting pipes beneath the sidewalks. tling contests, alligator rodeos and into the lanes of this tiny fishing Pure glacier water flows through family fun events like throwing cat­ town. the turbine plant, too, as a coolant. It fish to alligators. Whoo! say the city fathers. What emerges at a temperature of 77 to 86 So far, the plan here is in very ear­ an excellent place to raise alligators. degrees, then flows into a couple of ly stages. The town council is ex­ Sometimes it seems as if fish man-made ponds perched on the changing letters with the nation’s aren’t the only things being smoked cliffs above Skjalfandi Bay. Despite chief veterinarian and the agricul­ in this northernmost of northern set­ the weeds that thrive in the warm ture department, which has a few tings, with smoke and gases hissing water, some Husavikians swim there questions about how this all fits intc from the volcanic area at the edge of in winter, drifting through the ghost­ the ecosystem. town. ly steam. There are some hurdles of national Actually, the idea of turning Husa­ Reinhard Reynisson, 41, the may­ skepticism to clear. Besides the arc­ vik into the Everglades of the Arctic or, wants to nudge the swimmers tic fox, Iceland has almost no native is not as wild as it sounds. The “Kro- back to the municipal pool and re­ land animals. Polar bears stick to kodil Plan,” as it is called by locals, place them with alligators. The alli­ reflects this town’s inventive deter­ gators would eat the waste from the Greenland, the feral reindeer in the mination to survive. fish-packing plants, among other east are imports, as are the chestnut Husavik is a town of only 2,500 peo­ things. horses with blond manes seen every­ ple, which sounds infinitesimal but is Better than that, the reptiles would where and the sheep that look like nearly 1 percent of Iceland’s popula­ attract tourists looking for the total cotton balls with horns. The country tion, so itis"the equivaleiiforah whale-gator-shrimp-cocktailexperi- has no zoo; evehhdgsused'fo be American city of 2.5 million. But Ice­ ence. The alligators would not crawl banned in Reykjavik. land’s rural fishing towns are dying out at night to terrorize downtown “I don’t think the government as fish stocks shrink, conglomerates revelers since the cold would make likes the idea really,” said Johannes in bigger towns like Akureyri buy up the reptiles sluggish before they hit Sigurjonsson, the former editor of the remaining fish quotas and young the highway. And they would not mix the now-defunct Husavik paper. “It’s adults slip away to Reykjavik, the with local species because Iceland’s too new, too crazy. But there’s no op­ capital. lava fields and tundra do not even position in town.” Husavik is striving mightily to support snakes. Indeed, there is some enthusiasm. avoid that fate. With three refitted There is one drawback: Florida Thorotur Asgeirsson, a retired fish­ old oak fishing boats, it has become experts say that alligators, once full- erman in his 7O’s who still spends the whale-watching center of Eu­ grown, would not be satisfied with Sundays chopping frozen herring rope, attracting 24,000 visitors this fish scraps. into bait for his son’s boat, said he year, up from zero in 1995. No problem, says Mayor Reynis­ foresaw another environmentally Its tiny new whaling museum is son. Once they stop cooperating, he friendly use for the newcomers. Dig­ moving from a former fish freezer to said, people will eat the gators. Or ging graves is hard work in Iceland, a former sheep slaughterhouse. To skin and freeze them so others can. where only 1 percent of the volcanic keep industries afloat, the town’s “You know those charts that show landscape has enough dirt to farm. companies adapt. They buy shrimp cows for butchers?” he asked. “The “They can cut down on that ex­ from Norwegian ships to keep the ones that say ‘Here is steak, here is pense,” he said. “Now they can just shrimp-packing plant running. They ribs’? One of the butchers in town throw old guys like me to ^e croco­ import oak logs from Maine to cut made me one for alligators.” He got the initial idea, he said, diles.” into flooring for continental Europe because the cost of steam-drying the from an article in a United States De­ lumber is almost zero here. partment of Energy magazine about That free volcanic steam, in fact, is what makes bringing alligators here possible, as well as making Hu­ savik one of the most environmental­ ly correct spots on the planet. The town gets all of its heating for houses and most of its electricity out of the ground. About 12 miles inland, there is a geothermal field whose deepest wells produce water at 248 degrees Fahrenheit. The superheated water flows through an insulated high-pressure pipeline to a turbine plant that gener­ ates 75 percent of the town’s elec­ tricity. Then it runs through a net­ work of house radiators and frost­

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